DEARBORN, Mich. (WXYZ) — A 19-year-old man walked away without injuries after being trapped under 40,000 pounds of concrete when a parking structure partially collapsed in Dearborn Friday night, thanks to a dramatic rescue operation by firefighters who worked through bitter cold and unstable debris.
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The collapse occurred at 8:45 p.m. at a parking structure on Garrison Street, just off Outer Drive. The second floor of the garage pancaked onto the first floor, trapping the teenager inside his vehicle under massive concrete slabs.
"It looked like a big collapse, a pancake collapse… the second floor collapsed on the first, which collapsed on the car," Dearborn Fire Chief Joseph Murray said.
The rescue operation required crews from multiple stations responding to one of the highest-level dispatch calls the department issues.
"Not often, it's a high-risk, low-frequency type call," Murray said.
Dearborn Assistant Fire Chief of Special Operations Kelly Meister and her team arrived within minutes, facing frigid single-digit temperatures and an extremely dangerous situation.
"100% it was a race against time… we didn't know how stable the concrete was, if there would be secondary collapses," Meister said.
Initially, rescue crews couldn't even see the car buried under the debris. They feared they would need to cut through massive concrete slabs to reach the victim, which would have added hours to the operation in the freezing conditions.
However, the teenager's survival came down to an extraordinary stroke of luck. Murray showed the exact location where the young man was pinned, revealing how close he came to death.
"Six inches either way, and he would have been crushed," Murray said. "So very, very fortunate that he was able to make that out alive because it fell just in a manner where there was a void area in there where he was able to make it out, trapped but uninjured."
The T-beams underneath the collapsed floor created a small void space that protected the teenager from being crushed. The same space became the passage rescue teams used to reach the driver's side window.
"With a little bit of pressure, we were able to get him out through the window — no further vehicle extrication needed," Meister said.
Throughout the rescue, a Dearborn firefighter stayed on the phone with the teenager, keeping him calm. After being freed, the young man made sure to find the firefighter and thank her before going to the hospital for a precautionary check.
"Stars aligned… for him to have walked away from that scene like that," Meister said.
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The parking structure remains unsafe, with struts now holding up parts of the building as inspectors investigate what caused the collapse. Officials have expanded the fencing around the structure to keep people further back.
Murray said several factors could have contributed to the collapse, including water, freezing temperatures, and wind.
Specialized rescue units from across western Wayne County assisted in the operation, which initially was expected to take hours but was completed much more quickly due to the fortunate positioning of the debris.
Officials are urging everyone to stay away from the area as inspectors continue to investigate the building's structural integrity.
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